at work
Today begins spring break. In my neck of the woods anyway. When the break is over, I’ll go back to school, but only for two days a week. With my new free-from-paying-work time, I’m supposed to make something of myself. Write. Make art. Make a mistake?
I’m excited about the time. Worried that I should be in class come Monday morning.
Marta,
…First, now that you tell me I guess I did hurt you pretty much, you didn’t really hurt me, for say, but you embarassed the hell out of me. … Marta, your hair is looks about the same everyday long and blah! And your face, well, you really do need make-up. …some of the things that you wear have been out of date for some decades now! like your scarfs and, gee whiz, just because you are tall doesn’t mean that you have to wear those long vulgar shirts in an assortment of putrid colours! And gosh, a young lady shouldn’t wear her father’s shirts, at least not to school! … For heaven’s sake don’t ever hide your personality (albeit, it could use a lot of changes). … And I never blamed you for what S. did I just made you think I did, it was sort of my way of adding extra torment to your life! … Now, Marta, if you distrust every man just because I do you wrong you are the stupidiest Bitch I every met! … Marta I do want you to know that I don’t hate you, it’s just that I’ve lost all feeling for you. I feel the same way about you as I would towards any other stranger. …I don’t need to be reminded of all we meant to each other, I still remember!
I’ve been looking for letters from my mom. I found this letter instead. The young man who wrote it had been my best friend. He knew everything about me.
9th grade
Being afraid to put your work out into the world to face rejection seems silly. Rejection is going to come in your life one way or another. It isn’t as if an agent is going to point out all your flaws. She just isn’t going to take on your story. Aren’t there other people who can hurt you more?
I’m about to go from working four days a week to working two days a week. Those two new days off I’ll be writing, making art, and sending queries, short stories, whatever, out for rejection. I’ll make less money. I may fail. I may end up not feeling like the stupidest.
But I can take it, right?
This letter probably should be thrown away. But something about the written word, even hatefully written ones, that keeps me holding on to it. So. What is the worst rejection letter you’ve received? And do you keep your rejections or throw them away?
from my dad
The Oscars were on and dad expected me to be in bed. It was 1985. I sat in the dark, the light and volume turned down to almost black and silent, and my ear pressed to the television speaker. I didn’t get caught.
Acting never appealed to me, but storytelling was something else again. I love that feeling in my stomach and chest watching a good story. I’d go home wanting to keep that feeling. I’d like to create that feeling for someone else.
When you watch a good story, where do you feel it?
The Trailer Addict site’s embed button didn’t work, but it is worth clicking through from here. I must see this film. You could also go to The Secret of Kells site directly and see amazing images. Thank you, JES, for cluing me in. If it doesn’t come to Austin, I will cry.
Do you see many movies? Are you a renter or one of those folks who stands in line for hours to be among the first to see a new release? I know people who go to the cinema and see “whatever.” These people say things like, “Oh, that looks good. Why don’t we see that?”
When I was single and dating (or trying to date anyway), I went to see movies because they were there and some guy wanted to see it (View to a Kill, Lethal Weapon 4, Police Academy #?). Now, I only watch movies I want to see. Really want. I don’t see many movies, but I’m rarely disappointed.
I can’t explain what it is about a film that compels me to see it. It isn’t an actor. I love John Cusack but have seen very few of his films. It isn’t a director. A dose of magic helps. Loving the book a movie is based on helps. Art helps (look how gorgeous The Secret of Kells is!) Then again, there are plenty of fantasy flicks I don’t watch. And I hate that ready-for-an-Oscar-lighting some movies blind me with in the trailer.
What is it that gets you to a movie? (It is a far cry from a book, but almost every movie began with a writer telling a story.)
My art made it here! Crazy.
A person whose thoughts and writing I respect became a fan of this magazine on Facebook. This is how I found this new publication. I contacted the editor, submitted a story and art. The story may or may not make it in a later issue, but he asked for the art right away. Of course, I’m thrilled and surprised.
I’m always surprised by acceptance. Why is that? What about you? I know people who are never surprised by being let in the door. How do they manage that?
Well, you can see my art and read some stories. Thank you for stopping by again and again. You keep me going.
I like to win things, don’t you? And I’m a sucker for a compliment. But…
When I won a poetry award in high school, I hid the trophy and eventually threw it away. Pigs will be crashing landing on your roof before I frame a degree or certificate and hang it on the wall. In my real life, I squirm when telling people things like, “My art is going to be in a journal” or “My art got through the jury process!”
Even blogging awards are filled with conflict. Perhaps a Neurotic Fairy guards my mental gates and sprinkles every last bit of entering information and feeling with neurotic pixie dust. Man, that dust gets everywhere.
Anyway, some nice folks have given me awards at one time or another. DarcsFalcon, Miriam, and JES are the most recent. JES and Darcs both mention the Sunshine Award, JES talks about a Fabulous Sugar Doll Award, and Miriam had the Picasso Award. Most of these seem to ask the blogger to mention a few interesting things about herself. Whether or not something is interesting probably depends a lot on you, my reader, but in the spirit of things, I’ll give it a go.
1. Still loves Torchwood and Russell T. Davies.
2. Wrote her first short story in the 5th grade.
3. Isn’t sure how she feels that her art is more successful than her writing.
4. Is writing a short story about a mermaid a few decades into her marriage with a human.
5. A bird sits on my lamp and watches me write. 
*
That’s all I’ve got.
a letter to me from someone I used to know
Click on the letter to read what he wrote to me. I don’t remember what I wrote back, but I probably didn’t say, “Are you crazy?” Why did he feel he had to marry her? Are they still married today?
They bought a house and had a couple kids. That’s all I know since he doesn’t write anymore.
Why did you choose this writing path? What would’ve happened if you hadn’t chosen it? Could there have been something better?
And would your friends tell you if you were making a mistake? Would they be right?
Have you made good steps?
I composed a post in my head. Revised it. Considered pictures to go with it. Then chickened out. That’s the thing with writing–it is so easy to chicken out. Shake my head. Feel the knots pulling in my stomach. No reason to go there. It’s probably a big deal only to me.
Why embarrass myself twice? Haven’t I said enough?
Is there something you almost write and then don’t? When it comes to writing, what scene won’t you write? What scene stops your pen or keystrokes? Would it be worth getting it down? Why should you? Why should I?
nighthosting
We dispatched the 12-foot Amazon with a spear.
They thought she was dead, but it was her most common trick. She waited until they turned their backs, pulled the spear from her chest, and sent it right back, going through one head and then the next.
In college I worked as a nighthost. This meant sitting at a table in the lobby from 11:30 pm until 3 am. or from 3 am until 7 am. I checked IDs, had the guys sign in their guests, and watched out for smuggled alcohol. I worked in the fraternity dorm. Six fraternities lived in the building and I was the only woman who worked the night shift.
My fellow nighthosts and I had to keep a log of things that happened during our shift. Most of the time nothing happened. So one of the guys, started making things up. The guy who worked after him, added to the story. It didn’t take long for the story to turn into a bloody adventure tale pitting the guys against me–and I became the giant amazon.
I opened the log and saw the lines packed with details of how they had to rid the world of this monstrous amazon named Marta. I wrote back. The amazon had amazing powers of survival and she hunted each guy down and slaughtered him in one gory fashion or another.
The stories went back in forth. The daytime receptionists began reading them. The guys’ friends began reading them. Our boss read them.
“Don’t they bother you?” someone asked.
“No,” I said. “The stories are funny, and I kill the guys too.”
“You’re a good sport.”
I got called that a lot. The guys who wrote the stories called me that. “Thanks for being such a good sport.” “We like you. You’re such a good sport!”
The other day my friend JES said something about being a likable guy–which he noted doesn’t help during the submission process. Absolutely. I’ve been a good sport, polite, nice, and other bland but pleasant words. Too bad I can’t get published for having a pleasant personality. Editors don’t like me or dislike me. The story must speak for itself. Plenty of jerks get published because their writing works.
(Though I’ve never understood how writers who create thoughtful characters end up treating real people badly. But oh well.)
It scares me to have my writing stand up for itself without me alongside it to give it a gracious, friendly introduction. Do you ever think that if you could just chat with an agent or editor for a while, it would help get your stories through? What is it about you that ought to make an agent/editor accept you–if they only knew!
Communist sculpture...hurray for the mother country...
“She’s not my real daughter,” the woman said. “She’s adopted.”
“Oh,” I said. “Well, sure.” I didn’t know what to say. Her adopted daughter had gone into the clinic and the woman had come over to chat. That’s what I thought. I thought that since she’d driven this adopted child of hers to the clinic and that since she has so far been polite (“Nice to meet you.” “How are you?”), that she understood why B. and I were there in our well-worn escort jerseys.
“Adopted,” the woman said again. “Not my flesh and blood. I thought you should know that.”
What was it like, I wondered, to have the woman who adopted you, insist on telling strangers, making it clear that you are not really hers. “They do adoptions here too,” I said, wanting to find something to connect with.
“This.” She waved at the clinic doors. “This is what she wants to do.”
B. and I exchanged looks, but she was talking to me, not to him. “Well,” I said, “at least she has a safe place to go.”
“I’m Christian,” she began. She went on from there about why she was right and I was bad. I nodded and nodded and nodded, and all I could think about was the girl who was adopted who was not choosing adoption. The girl must have known her so-called mother was out there telling me and B. (the 86-year-old retired librarian) her numerous sins and reminding everyone she wasn’t really hers and that the baby wouldn’t've been her real grandchild anyway. I dug my fingernail into the edge of my styrofoam coffee cup. I wanted to say, “Go inside and give your daughter a hug. You chose her. Go help her. Things could be different.” Of course, I also wanted to say, “Please, shut up.”
But I didn’t. I nodded.
The woman ranted. Hectored. Lectured. Finally, she sat down on the low wall along the walkway and was quiet. She never went in. And when her adopted daughter came out, they said nothing to each other. They went to the car. B. looked at me. “I wouldn’t want to be in that car,” he said.
Sending a story into the world isn’t on par with sending a person. You will not hear me compare writing a story to having a child. Writing has never ended with blood, vomit, stitches, and the inability to stand up without pain for months. Writing I want to do again and again.
But I write something, I send it into the world, and the story is mine. I’m responsible for it. I can’t blame my high school English teacher or my parents or even my lack of sleep. (I’ll blame typos on the sleep.) You can’t accept the credit for successful stories if you can’t accept the blame for failed ones.
But each story is mine and I love all my stories. Call me crazy, but I can’t give up on any one of them. I won’t go so far as to say they’re like my children. Or like adopted children. But they’re mine and I’m glad I wrote them no matter how awful they are.
How do you feel about your stories? Do you love them? Hate them? Feel bored by them? Do you give up on any of them or stick with them even when they disappoint?
